Interesting marking twist. So for $7.99 you get steaming, as well as "free" two day shipping. And if you subscribe for the year, you get a discount.

Clearly target at netflix.

I don't know if it's so much targeted at Netflix, to be honest. Prime is simply a way for Amazon to get people to buy the little things at Amazon. Normally people will wait to buy things on Amazon until they have a lot they want, so they can defray the shipping costs. This means that if they want something right then, they'd skip Amazon and buy local.

By doing the free 2 day shipping thing, Amazon makes it so a lot of people will go "Oh, I'll just check Amazon!" for something. And you really do buy a shitload of stuff more from them with the free two day shipping. I bought something that cost like 8 bucks from them the other day because I didn't feel like going to the store to get it. (And a buddy of mine bought a toothbrush, just to see if they'd still honor the free 2 day shipping (they did.))

Now, that's what happens when people ARE prime members, but they have to get them to want to BE prime members. Let's be honest, 80 bucks is a fairly big chunk of change in these days. So they've been adding a lot of benefits to prime, with the streaming just being one of them.

I honestly don't think it's a "Let's take on netflix!" kind of deal, as the streaming stuff is a fringe benefit, and in reality Amazon probably makes little to no money off the prime memberships anyway. They make their money off the fact that people will buy a ton more stuff on Amazon.

I think Prime is one of the smartest memberships ever offered by a company. It benefits both me AND them.

As for their streaming catalogue, I can't really compare as I don't have netflix, but it's mostly pretty old stuff. Don't expect to find anything new on the streams (at least not on the free ones. They do have everything, but obviously all the new stuff is PPV.)

I still enjoy it, though. I watch some old tv shows for free while at work and bored. I've been rewatching Voyager. (free is about all that's worth.)

Creston

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